Word: howson
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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THIEF-TAKER GENERAL, THE RISE AND FALL OF JONATHAN WILD by Gerald Howson. 338 pages. St. Martin's Press...
...hanged by a corrupt judge (appropriately, on false evidence that he had received a bit of stolen lace). Wild died wealthy, though. During his career the reward for giving evidence rose from ?40 to ? 140, or from $2,000 to $7,000 in modern money, as Author Gerald Howson reckons it. The figures seem inflated; he reports, for instance, that the highest-priced whores of the time cost ?50 a night, by his scale an absurd $2,500 in 1971 dollars...
Defoe wrote about Wild, and so did Fielding (The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great). John Gay used him as the model for Peachum ("Impeach 'em") in his Beggar's Opera. The story can stand any amount of retelling, and Howson's is full of wonderful oddments: at Old Bailey in Wild's time, trials were conducted in the open air regardless of weather; the original Jenny Diver sat in church with false, gloved hands folded primly across her stomach, while her real ones picked adjacent purses. There are also some linguistic notes: "Rattling...